Trash Plant Issue Put on Ballot by Council

In a stunning reversal of fortune, an initiative aimed at preventing construction of a trash-burning energy plant was placed on the November ballot by the San Diego City Council on Tuesday.

Just days ago, the so-called clean air measure appeared moribund because it had failed to receive sufficient signatures to qualify for the ballot. The city clerk ruled that the initiative needed at least 54,400 valid petition signatures--10% of the number of registered voters at the time of the November, 1986, election.

On Tuesday, proponents of the measure persuaded council members that the clerk had based his calculation on the wrong election--November, 1986, rather than November, 1985. Based on the number of registered voters in the earlier election, 4,000 fewer signatures were needed to qualify the initiative.

That adjustment was just enough to allow the initiative to squeak by, and council members voted, 7-1, to place it before voters in November.

“We’re ecstatic,” said Bob Glaser, spokesman for San Diegans for Clean Air, the group sponsoring the measure. “It shows you should never give up. And we never will.”

Attorneys for Signal Environmental Systems, the company that is supposed to build the controversial trash-burning plant, said they will decide soon whether to ask for a re-examination of the signatures or challenge the council’s decision in court.

$400-Million Plant

At stake is the fate of a $400-million city-county trash-to-energy plant, known as SANDER, that proponents say is needed because the county’s landfill capacity is diminishing. The plant would burn 2,250 tons of trash a day and generate enough electricity annually for 60,000 homes.

However, San Diegans for Clean Air wants to derail the plan because of questions about the health effects of the plant’s emissions, which would include suspected or known carcinogens such as dioxin, cadmium and arsenic.

Tuesday’s council vote capped a hectic day of legal maneuvering, during which the city attorney’s office was asked for on-the-spot opinions and attorneys for both sides in the issue huddled repeatedly to draft strategy and battle each other with an arsenal of technicalities.

At one point, Mayor Maureen O’Connor said she was willing to send a policeman out to find an employee from the county’s Registrar of Voters office to help clarify the issue.

Turning the Tide

The technicality that turned the tide was raised Monday by members of San Diegans for Clean Air. The group had collected more than 79,000 signatures on petitions to put the initiative on the ballot, but the city clerk’s office announced that a check revealed only 48,797 valid names--far fewer than the 54,454 threshold presumed needed to qualify the measure.

Last week, the group appeared before the council and attacked the way the names had been analyzed by the county Registrar of Voters, which was under contract with the city to review the petitions.

The council voted to spend $30,000 to take a second, more thorough, look at the signatures on the outside chance that the measure had been improperly disqualified. The council made the decision even though city and county election officials predicted that the second review still would leave the measure far short of the needed number.

And so it seemed to be on Monday, when the city clerk’s office announced that the second review brought the initiatives total to 51,498--still 3,000 names short.

San Diegans for Clean Air mounted yet another legal challenge, undermining the 54,400 threshold number used by the city. That number represents 10% of the 544,000 voters registered at the time of the city election held in November, 1986.

University of San Diego Law School Prof. John H. Minan told council members that the city was using the wrong election on which to base its threshold calculation.

Minan, who is working free for the Clean Air group, hung his argument on Section 23 of the City Charter, which provides for Initiatives, Referendum and Recalls. The section reads, in part: “That for direct submission (of an initiative) to the people it should require a petition signed by 10% of the registered voters of the city at the last general election.”

Special Election

Minan told council members that his research showed the November, 1986, election was actually a special election called by the city to coincide with a state election. The last time the city held a general election was in November, 1985, when four council seats were up before voters, he said.

Shifting the threshold date back one year, then, became a crucial step. Since there were only 504,541 voters registered on that date, the new threshold number would become 50,454.

And that would mean, Minan concluded, the initiative would qualify with more than 51,000 signatures.

The key to the council decision came after the city attorney’s office concurred with Minan’s interpretation, and pronounced the initiative qualified for the ballot.

Councilman Bill Cleator voted against the measure, and Councilman Mike Gotch was absent.